Cycling Ireland & Club Details

Dr_Colossus

Hi, anyone having difficulty trying to register on the Cycling Ireland website where it won't let you select a club? On the 3rd stage of the registration process you click if you've a member of a club and then are supposed to enter the club name. However the Club Name box doesn't have a list of clubs in the drop down menu and it won't let you type in a name manually.

Anyone have the same problem and get onto CI about it? I was going to but I hear they're notoriously slow in getting back to you so was hoping someone here would have experienced the same problem and found a solution.
Thanks

davey101

Yeah i had the same problem. I eventually got P!$$ed off and closed browser only to go back a while later to retry and the list was there. It was possibly my browser (opera). Anyway try again and see what happens or try a different browser.

spokeydokey

I thought I was having that problem but the drop down menu eventually appeared. Took a while though. Maybe if you wait a bit longer?

I did give up on the website after a while for some other reason... no fun at all:mad:

Dr_Colossus

No good, tried it on 3 diff computers with 2 diff browsers and still the same problem. Will try contacting CI direct to see if they can sort their website.

morana

I will pass it onto the office for you and let you know tomorrow.;)

High Nellie

In my experience cycling ireland has always been like some secret society that makes it very difficult to join - and they make an annual ritual of this.
Information on events is equally secretive - all of last year they had a calendar on the front page showing 'no events' -for the whole year!!!!!!!!!!!! - and they are getting public funding.

Diarmuid

High Nellie wrote: »

In my experience cycling ireland has always been like some secret society that makes it very difficult to join - and they make an annual ritual of this.
Information on events is equally secretive - all of last year they had a calendar on the front page showing 'no events' -for the whole year!!!!!!!!!!!! - and they are getting public funding.

You are making it sound like a conspiracy. The information is there, it's just not well presented. For instance this is the 2011 calendar

morana

High Nellie wrote: »

In my experience cycling ireland has always been like some secret society that makes it very difficult to join - and they make an annual ritual of this.
Information on events is equally secretive - all of last year they had a calendar on the front page showing 'no events' -for the whole year!!!!!!!!!!!! - and they are getting public funding.

give me a break will you!!

an additional 45% of new members didnt find it hard to join last year!

Morgan

Another link to the calendar:

https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?showTitle=0&showTz=0&height=600&wkst=2&bgcolor=%23ffffff&src=cycling.ireland.bmx@gmail.com&color=%232952A3&src=irishxcmtb@gmail.com&color=%237A367A&src=irishcyclocross@gmail.com&color=%237A367A&src=leisure@cyclingireland.net&color=%23333333&src=road@cyclingireland.net&color=%232F6309&src=irishdh@gmail.com&color=%235A6986&ctz=Europe/Dublin&gsessionid=46lqaU55WBdqW_4xZln-UQ

(this should be the same as the one embedded on the CI home page).

All I'll say for the membership system is - it's a bit better than last year. If you're having problems with it please let the guys in the CI office know, info@cyclingireland.ie

Idleater

morana wrote: »

I will pass it onto the office for you and let you know tomorrow.;)

I was on to the office about it earlier in January.

It appears that you have to deselect the "member of a club" and have it load the provincial list, then select it again and have it load the club list.

Someone presumably was implementing a "my first project" using the aspx AJAX "on load" feature.

Dr_Colossus

Idleater wrote: »

I was on to the office about it earlier in January.

It appears that you have to deselect the "member of a club" and have it load the provincial list, then select it again and have it load the club list.

Someone presumably was implementing a "my first project" using the aspx AJAX "on load" feature.

Thanks Idleater, that worked a treat and now registered. Presume CI will be in contact regarding payment after my details have been verified.

In fairness to CI I sent them an email last night on the matter and they replied this morning saying that if I still had problems registering that they'd send me an application form and I could apply manually. Not an ideal solution but content with the email response and acknowledgment at least.

morana

Jut checked it out myself its not supper. Glad to see the office got onto you today.

C3PO

morana wrote: »

.....an additional 45% of new members didnt find it hard to join last year!

Now that's simply not true ..... trying to join CI last year online was an unmitigated nightmare! It appears to be better this year but still not without issues!! Not in any way blaming the ordainary staff of CI but your web designer really has questions to answer!

morana

RPL1 wrote: »

Now that's simply not true ..... trying to join CI last year online was an unmitigated nightmare! It appears to be better this year but still not without issues!! Not in any way blaming the ordainary staff of CI but your web designer really has questions to answer!

We did have a rise of 45% in membershipop last year! Not all through the online system granted.

Yes we had desperate problems with the online system last year and the web design company, not an individual, a bona fide private sector company had those questions put them and the impact it had on CI and the members was highlighted.

In fairness they have rectified a lot of the issues that we had but it could, and will be , tweaked even more.

and as I am an open and transparent type of person if you want to post the issues here I will get them addressed. if you want to pm them to me pls do or if you want to go straight to the office then info@cyclingireland.ie will get it to the right people.

High Nellie

... if you want to post the issues here I will get them addressed. if you want to pm them to me pls do or if you want to go straight to the office then info@cyclingireland.ie will get it to the right people.[/QUOTE]

I don't know why you are asking us to point out the obvious and what you know already.
And, last year, I didn't get a response from Cycling Ireland to either my phone or email messages when I was doing my best to join, so I have no notion of wasting my time again this year.

RobFowl

And, last year, I didn't get a response from Cycling Ireland to either my phone or email messages when I was doing my best to join, so I have no notion of wasting my time again this year


Hi High Nellie
Don't let the bad experiences put you off. I am part of Cycling Ireland in a non employed but consultative role and find all the staff there to be highly motivated and hard working.
The benefits of membership are not to be dismissed lightly and joining through a club with out paying on-line is almost always straightforward.
I know in this day and age people like to do things on-line and hopefully CI will get this sorted out (i'm not a fan of the website either).
If you want your concerns passed on directly then morana is a well placed, hard working volunteer member of the board (he has stated this here publically so hope its ok to restate this). I will be at meeting with CI over the next few days as well so if you want to PM me either I'll pass on your concerns.
Bottom line is as a sport we need all cyclists to try to stay as united as possible. The more members CI has the more influence we have and this has so many positives on every level for both cycling as a whole and individual cyclists as a trickle down effect.
Bottom line is please give CI another chance.
Rob

morana

I don't know why you are asking us to point out the obvious and what you know already.
And, last year, I didn't get a response from Cycling Ireland to either my phone or email messages when I was doing my best to join, so I have no notion of wasting my time again this year.

Sorry I dont see the obvious! As RobFowl said if you want to throw anything at all out pls do and we will try address the issues.

Last year the office was snowed under with work to get the licences out due to migration to a new system. This is no excuse for not getting back to you. We, thankfully,have approx 10k members we have 2 people servicing that membership. Jan Feb is our busiest time of year and its impossible for H&R to be on the phones/emails for the full day while trying to print licences (deal with insurance, banks, etc etc.). Why cant we get more help? Well the budget isnt there.

Start a new thread and point out our obvious flaws and the not so obvious ones and I will try have them addresses. All criticism good or bad is welcome!

morana

PS I am not electioneering although it feels that way

C3PO

Certainly my earlier comments were in no way a criticism of the guys who work in CI. In fact because of my frustration with the website last year I just printed out the form, filled it in, and dropped into CI with it! I was dealt with efficiently and pleasantly and had my licence within days - so this year I just did the same thing! Probably not what CI would like everybody to do but I can't stand the guessing game of dealing with websites that don't function properly!!

Raam

I'll just add, my renewal has gone very smoothly.
I logged in, picked my category and pressed a button.
After a couple of days I got an email to state that my club approved me and then another to say that CI approved me and that I simply need to pay now.

I still gotta do that bit.

CheGuedara

My 2c as someone in club administration - I'm liking the fact that I can get members licences applied for online.

It has been almost without flaw so far this year and is (for me anyway) a lot easier than having to send multiple envelopes of applications in the mail and paying with cheques.

Just a matter of waiting for cards and handbooks to arrive in the mail now and even at that I am able to give riders their licence number before it arrives if they need it. Handy as a small pot.

High Nellie

RobFowl wrote: »

And, last year, I didn't get a response from Cycling Ireland to either my phone or email messages when I was doing my best to join, so I have no notion of wasting my time again this year


Hi High Nellie
Don't let the bad experiences put you off. I am part of Cycling Ireland in a non employed but consultative role and find all the staff there to be highly motivated and hard working.
The benefits of membership are not to be dismissed lightly and joining through a club with out paying on-line is almost always straightforward.
I know in this day and age people like to do things on-line and hopefully CI will get this sorted out (i'm not a fan of the website either).
If you want your concerns passed on directly then morana is a well placed, hard working volunteer member of the board (he has stated this here publically so hope its ok to restate this). I will be at meeting with CI over the next few days as well so if you want to PM me either I'll pass on your concerns.
Bottom line is as a sport we need all cyclists to try to stay as united as possible. The more members CI has the more influence we have and this has so many positives on every level for both cycling as a whole and individual cyclists as a trickle down effect.
Bottom line is please give CI another chance.
Rob

Hi Rob,

Don't worry - my comments here are in the hope that they will help to get these problems sotred. But the problems are self-evident, are going on for a number of years, and must be known about in CI unless very poor standards are taken for granted.

I know about websites from various angles and, beyond the amateur efforts, the CI site is about as bad as it can get, I regret to say.
Why it has been left that way I can only guess. The one example I mentioned earlier is just one example of this - an events on the front page for a full year showing no events. Allowing this go on, rather than just taking it down, seems to have show a complete lack of pride.

There are still loads of links up there to empty pages: just take these two pages from the 'Leisure' section as an example:
http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/Leisure/Documents.aspx
http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/Leisure/FAQ.aspx

And take the Provincial sections as just another example. The provincial calendars show hardly any events and Cycling Ulster keep a seperate website....

I presume someone is in charge of this site - it should only take an hour to go through it and get a snag list of these issues together and it sorted.

Any organisation's website is now its main interface with the public and this site, in tandem with the registration issue, just projects an air of general slopiness about the organisation and doesn't reflect well on the many volunteers who work very hard for us. I don't know enough about CI to know where this comes from.

morana

Thats what I like to hear!

Yes there are some links and youve highlighted, 2 with no content ther maybe more! The provincial parts were put in place for the provinces to update and not the overworked office staff and they havent seen the need to post any content. Ulster have a very good topical site.

And now with a new leisure commission I am sure you will have more leisure content appearing on the site in the very near future. I will bring your comments to the attention of the board member responsible for communications.
There is a google calendar on the homepage with all the upcoming events.

The website was devloped by a company for CI and it was broadly based on the GUI (Golf) website. They got glowing references from the GUI afaik.The website wasnt the only part of the development the whole membership system had to be created and that was a disaster in my opinion but that was more important to our business than the website. That has bedded down now and so hopefully you will see an improvement in the content going up.

We are never going to compete with Irishcycling.com or any of the other topical cycling websites, we dont want to. Come to us for info about the National team, selections, criteria for getting on squads, insurance for you and the bike, technical regulations and initiatives that we are involved with like the An Post series, the city center crit series, Sprocket rocket, Gearing up, coaching seminars, how to become a coach and development camps etc. And of course for renewing your licence!

As for poor standards I cant accept that.

morana

forgot this "I presume someone is in charge of this site - it should only take an hour to go through it and get a snag list of these issues together and it sorted."

The company are in charge the office staff post content but honestly at this time of year they havent got time to do it.

if anybody out there in the ether wants to do it pls do and send to me!

ednwireland

i have to say a good word about the website, i transferred form unassigned to a club and payed my subs this year no problem it worked fine (but i do work in IT and deal with figuring out how to make stuff work every day)

probably spoken too soon cos i havent got a membership card - only did it a couple of days ago)

now the club subs are a different matter !

i still dont understand all the licences though

morana

They are currently printing licences.

Raam

Morana, may I ask about the bike insurance...

I couldn't find any info on the website apart from what is at this location and that seems more for when running a race or making a claim.

I've never taken out insurance via Cycling Ireland before.

I'm in the process of paying for my license so I am wondering if I may do the insurance part at the same time, assuming it is suitable for me.

thanks

P

morana

Raam wrote: »

Morana, may I ask about the bike insurance...

I couldn't find any info on the website apart from what is at this location and that seems more for when running a race or making a claim.

I've never taken out insurance via Cycling Ireland before.

I'm in the process of paying for my license so I am wondering if I may do the insurance part at the same time, assuming it is suitable for me.

thanks

P

The underwriters are currently finalising their offering. It will be separate to your licence however the personal insurance is included in your licence fee. There should be an announcement on the bike insurance and 24/7 on bike coverage (with some caveats) before the season starts.

Bike insurance was in place before but the underwriters lost a heap of money on it so this bike insurance will be more costly and more rigourously monitored I guess.

doozerie

morana wrote:

and as I am an open and transparent type of person if you want to post the issues here I will get them addressed. if you want to pm them to me pls do or if you want to go straight to the office then info@cyclingireland.ie will get it to the right people.

I just came across this thread now and there is one issue in particular that I'd like to see sorted on the website. I've tried pursuing it via the mail address above over the course of a couple of months, but although I received replies indicating that the issue would be addressed the website has not changed.

I originally reported two issues but it's the simpler of the two that I'll raise here as it has a relatively simple and quick fix. The issue is that the login facility on the website is not protected i.e. traffic is not encrypted so while someone is logging in their username and password are visible in transit as is the information in their profile if they access that while logged in. A secure login facility already exists, here, so the "hard" work is already done but last time I checked the secure page was not linked to from anywhere within the Cycling Ireland website for reasons that I can't fathom. That secure facility has existed for at least a year or two, and probably a lot longer so I don't understand why it is effectively ignored. The SSL certificate upon which it relies was renewed in August 2011 and is valid until December 2012 so obviously Cycling Ireland are paying to have this secure login available despite it not being advertised/used.

Any mails that I receive from Cycling Ireland which direct me to a login page point me to a non-secured version of the above page. Also, the login facility accessible directly on the website homepage is not secured either. The simple fix here is to use the secure page URL in e-mails to members, and to replace the login boxes on the home page (and wherever it appears in the site) with a link to the secure page. I suggested this back in August 2011 and was told that it had been raised with your web providers but it still hasn't happened.

There is one possible implication of this change for the server on which your website is hosted. Encrypted links incur heavier resource usage on the server, so if the server was being used heavily by lots of users simultaneously there may be a risk that people may experience slower responses. For any decent server though that situation should be unlikely to arise for the kinds of numbers that Cycling Ireland members amount to, and if it did arise I'd complain to your hosting provider that the server they are hosting your website on is not up to scratch.

The lack of any visible secure login facility on the website right now reflects badly on the web developers as it is standard practice to secure peoples' details, and obviously a legal requirement to secure personal details (e.g. date of birth) - any commercial company that develops a website without such basic protection will not appeal much to potential future customers. The web development company currently list your website amongst their client list so it is in their own interests to sort this out if you raise it with them.

2x4

Morana thanks for coming on and answering questions. The "Leisure" calendar on the CI site seems to have the wrong details for every event. Can anything be done to sort this out?

morana

@doozerie. I will follow this up. they are a company in the North who had a number of issues last year and have been sorting them out...slowly but I will bring it up

@2x4. will see what I can do

morana

morana wrote: »

@doozerie. I will follow this up. they are a company in the North who had a number of issues last year and have been sorting them out...slowly but I will bring it up

@2x4. will see what I can do

The secure login is in test at the moment on their staging server...although I dont know how we can see it....I presume they change the core html not the office staff. it will be live asap....

The leisure stuff will be sorted in the next week.

doozerie

morana wrote:

The secure login is in test at the moment on their staging server...although I dont know how we can see it....I presume they change the core html not the office staff. it will be live asap....

Thanks a lot for following up on it. In the meantime, the secure login available on this page works fine, as per my post above, so I'd encourage people to use that until secure login has been made officially live on the website.

J Madone

Got my license and number yesterday
I will have to do something about the poxy pink A4 number.
Definitely an incentive to move up the ranks!
Anyone know what colours the other cats. are?

Lumen

J Madone wrote: »

I will have to do something about the poxy pink A4 number.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70966069&postcount=3440

doozerie

J Madone wrote:

Anyone know what colours the other cats. are?

A3 - Mauve
A2 - Cerise
A1 - Peppa Pig

Pink is the new black.

...or check here for the boring truth.

Idleater

morana wrote: »

The underwriters are currently finalising their offering. It will be separate to your licence however the personal insurance is included in your licence fee. There should be an announcement on the bike insurance and 24/7 on bike coverage (with some caveats) before the season starts.

Bike insurance was in place before but the underwriters lost a heap of money on it so this bike insurance will be more costly and more rigourously monitored I guess.

Morana (or anyone else for that matter),

Just wondering if there is any update on the insurance front?